


you and i remain the same

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Past John "Abe" Abraham/Alex Hunt, Post-Canon, Pre-John "Abe" Abraham/Harper Li
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27443392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Harper, to her credit, didn’t even look surprised to see him standing on her doorstep at six minutes past midnight.//A month after Harper's return from Maine, she and Abe have a late-night conversation about his recent breakup with Alex. They both encounter some realizations along the way.
Relationships: John "Abe" Abraham & Harper Li, John "Abe" Abraham/Harper Li
Kudos: 8





	you and i remain the same

**Author's Note:**

> There's a deleted scene from "Don and Doff" in which Harper receives a call from Bard and chooses to ignore it. When Abe tells her she won't be arrested for talking to Bard, she replies that, "the foundation's cracked. If you move forward, knowing that, who knows where you'll end up." Somehow, those thirty seconds were enough to inspire me to write over 2K words. Go figure. 
> 
> The title comes from Maren Morris's "The Bones."

Harper, to her credit, didn’t even look surprised to see him standing on her doorstep at six minutes past midnight. She simply studied him for a moment, heaved a quiet sigh, and stepped aside so that he could enter the apartment.

He glanced around her living room while waiting for her to close and bolt the door behind them. It was a nice enough place, tidy but still warm, and there was something about the simplicity of the furniture and décor that was just so very _Harper_ that he couldn’t help but smile slightly as he turned to face her.

“It’s late,” she remarked quietly, the simple words more of a statement of fact than a reprimand.

“I know,” he replied apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say I wanted an apology,” Harper pointed out, glancing at him over her shoulder as she made her way into her kitchen. He heard the fridge open several seconds later; within half a minute, she had returned, a bottle of beer in each hand. “I was just wondering if there’s a reason you decided to drop by at…” She looked over his shoulder at the clock hanging above her front door. “12:11 in the morning.”

“I didn’t…” He exhaled slowly, looking away from her as he attempted to gather his thoughts. “I didn’t actually plan to end up here when I got in the truck. I was just going to drive around for a while, try and clear my mind, but…” He offered a half-shrug. “Somehow, I ended up in the neighborhood, and I figured why not just drop in?”

“Mm.” She stared at him a moment longer, then nodded in acceptance. “You want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever you needed to clear your mind of this late at night,” she supplied, smiling in thanks as he reached over to snag the beer bottle from her grasp, returning it only once it’d been opened. “You’re not really the type to go on a drive to clear your head. That’s more my thing. You’d rather drive to the gym, take your aggression out on some poor, defenseless sack of sand.”

Abe chuckled quietly, then exhaled heavily through his nose when the lieutenant tilted her head to one side, eyeing him so _knowingly_ that it comforted him and terrified him at the same time. “I ended things with Alex.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised by the news, but not pitying, which he was grateful for. “Tonight?”

“No. It was while you were in Maine. I realized you were right, about what you said before my arrest. If the foundation’s cracked from the start, nothing you build is going to be stable. The, uh, the foundation of my relationship with Alex was our shared grief over Jason’s death. We’d both lost him, and it felt like we’d lucked out by finding each other, but really, all we did in that relationship was lose ourselves.” He glanced up at her, relieved to find no judgement in her gaze, only understanding. “We broke up the day after we got back from Indiana. Visiting with Dixon’s family, meeting his widow again after all this time, it opened my eyes. Made me face things I’d been trying to avoid. You know how it is, being confronted by your past.”

“I know it well,” Harper agreed. She walked over to the sofa and took a seat, then silently gestured for him to do the same. “Do you regret it?”

“No,” he replied honestly. “A part of me always knew we’d end up there eventually. At least we got it over with early enough that nobody got hurt.”

“You were court-martialed on decade-old mutiny and sedition charges because some of the higher-ups disapproved of your relationship with her,” she reminded him wryly. “You nearly lost your career, could have spent the rest of your life in the brig. I’d say you took a pretty good hit because of that relationship, Abraham, wouldn’t you?”

“Alright, well, nobody got their _heart broken_ , at least,” he amended, smiling crookedly. “We agreed we would be friends, or friend _ly_ , at the very least, for the kids’ sake. I’ve known both girls their whole lives; I’m Maggie’s godfather, even. And with their dad gone, Alex and I decided it’d be best if they didn’t lose someone else from their lives right now.”

“That’s good,” Harper murmured. “That you’re staying in their lives. Danny seems like a great kid. I know I didn’t get to know her well; she didn’t spend much time with us and also, well, I’m _me_ , children tend to hate my guts from the second they meet me…” She threw a half-hearted glare his way when he laughed quietly at the observation, “but _still_ , it’s obvious she adores you.”

Abe smiled sadly. “Like I said, I’ve known her for her whole life. I still remember the day she was born. I was, uh, I was in Afghanistan with her dad. Jason was…” He glanced away, chuckling to himself. “He was just beside himself. We’d been shipped out three months before Al’s due date, and when he got the call, it was as if we weren’t in the middle of a war, and there weren’t half a dozen commanding officers in the room. He was just a husband who was glad his wife was alright; just a dad who was hearing his daughter cry for the very first time.” The prosecutor ran a hand down his face. “When Alex sent him photos of the baby later that day, I was the first person he showed them to. I was, uh, I was family in Jason’s eyes, and I repaid everything he did for me by sleeping with his wife.”

“Abe. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t… don’t sit here and convince yourself that you betrayed your best friend. You didn’t. Jason was gone for months before you even thought about starting anything with her, right? You didn’t bury him and then fall into bed with her. You’re both adults, who made adult decisions, and you decided to go there with each other; you decided to take that risk together. In the long run, that risk didn’t pay off, and now you’ve ended up here, but… Jason considered you family because he trusted you to watch after his wife and children if and when he couldn’t anymore. That’s exactly what you did. It doesn’t matter what else happened between you and Alex. You took care of her. You took care of those little girls. I just, I really believe Jason Hunt would be more grateful for you than he’d be angry at you for what’s happened since he’s been gone.”

“You didn’t even know him,” Abe pointed out rationally.

“I didn’t know him. But I do know _you_. You’ve got this habit of making people fond of you, even if they started out hellbent on loathing you. You bring out the best in them, and let them bring out the best in you, and it’s, it’s good, you know? Despite the many, many difficulties that can came with trying to get to know you, the _real you_ , you’re a good friend to make, and you’re a good friend to keep, and I know, even now, even after all we’ve been through, that my life is better for having you in it. I guarantee you that Jason Hunt knew that, too.”

He stared at her for several seconds, finding himself momentarily mute in the face of that declaration. When he finally managed to find his voice again, his first words were teasing. “So. You were hellbent on loathing me, huh?”

She scoffed, shaking her head with an exasperated smile that didn’t quite manage to hide her obvious amusement. “ _Yes_. You called me Boot for the first nine months you knew me, and you used ridiculously obscure words that _nobody_ , including the people who write up the SATs, has used in the past century. I was pretty certain I’d never really be able to stand you. You proved me wrong, obviously. You knew that already, though.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, smirk softening into something much gentler, much _fonder_. “I did.”

Harper huffed a laugh, glancing away from him. “What I’m trying to say here is that you are a good man, John Abraham. A good friend. I have a hard time believing that anyone who knew you could ever be led to doubt either one of those things. I know _I_ couldn’t. So just… try to be a little less hard on yourself.” She reached over to squeeze his hand gently, releasing it a moment later with a soft, shy smile. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he acquiesced a moment later.

Her smile widened, and she patted his arm once more before taking a swallow of beer. “So,” she began once she’d set the bottle down on the coffee table, “what brought all this up?”

“What brought all what up?”

“Well, you said you broke up with Alex when I was in Maine. I got back over a month ago. Why haven’t you brought it up before? Why now?”

“Ah.” Abe hesitated. “Danny’s got a recital next week. She wants me there. Alex called to tell me.”

“And you don’t want to go?” Harper surmised, taking another sip of beer as she waited for his answer.

“I do want to go,” Abe corrected. “Like I said, I’ve known Danny her whole life. As long as she wants me around, I want to be around. I just… Alex and I haven’t spent much time together, after everything. I’ve picked the girls up a couple times, but she and I didn’t exactly talk. And recitals… they’re long, and they take place in the dark, and I don’t really think an eighteen-month-old’s going to be great at breaking the tension, if there is any.”

“I could come with you,” Harper offered genuinely, laughing when he glanced over at her, eyes wide and incredulous. “What? I’ve followed you into warzones before, Abraham. Somehow, I think a fourth-grade dance recital’s likely to be a little safer than Kismayo or Idlib were.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t med some of those girls’ mothers,” Abe muttered, smiling when she laughed outright at the picture his words painted. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I want to,” Harper assured him, smiling slightly. “You clearly want to go, but you don’t want to go by yourself. Me going with you is the easy, obvious solution. Plus, I figure I can guilt you into buying me a milkshake after,” she added with a cheeky grin.

He laughed. “Harper, you’re volunteering to sit through a heavily edited performance of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. One that’s going to be put on by a group of _nine-year-olds_. I will happily buy you a 24-ounce ribeye if that’s what you want.”

“Eh. We can save that for the talent show,” Harper joked. “For this, I will happily take my payment in the form of a burger and a milkshake. Ooh, and seasoned fries.”

“You got it,” Abe agreed easily, smiling over at her as she finished with her drink and set the now-empty bottle back on the coffee table. “Thank you, by the way. For letting me in here. For talking to me. I know it’s late.”

Harper nodded. “It is. But don’t worry about how late it is. Ever. It’ll never be too late for me to talk to you, alright?”

“And yet you refuse to talk to me until you’ve had coffee some mornings,” Abe pondered innocently.

She huffed, biting back a smile. “Okay, so maybe it’s too early for you sometimes, but still. You need to talk, I will… power through my caffeine headache. Or I’ll put a pot of coffee on at one in the morning,” she shrugged. “Either way, it’s no problem.”

Abe nodded once, eyes never leaving her face. “Same goes for you, you know.”

“I know,” she confirmed quietly, glancing over at him with a shy grin before averting her gaze to the TV. She’d muted it upon answering the door, but whatever show she’d been watching had been playing in the background throughout their conversation. “You ready to head home, yet?”

“Not particularly,” he answered honestly.

Harper nodded knowingly. “ _Law & Order _marathon?”

“Can I poke fun of the way they butcher procedure?” Abe questioned hopefully.

She heaved a long-suffering sigh, shaking her head in false exasperation, but the grin on her face gave her away. “If you must.”

“Oh,” Abe said, redirecting his attention to the screen as she found the channel and unmuted the television, “I must.”


End file.
